KUWAIT: The number of people who have received one or both doses of the vaccination against COVID-19 amounted to 2,668,082 as of yesterday, Health Ministry's Spokesman Dr Abdullah Al-Sanad announced. In a statement to KUNA, Dr Sanad confirmed that the national campaign to vaccinate people will continue until it reaches its goal. The percentage of people who are vaccinated represents 68.4 percent of the population of Kuwait, he explained.

Dr Sanad valued the efforts of all medical and volunteer teams and various state agencies that participated in the campaign, pointing out that the ongoing efforts of the campaign were reflected in the noticeable improvement in the indicators of assessing the epidemiological situation in the country. The level of awareness as well as cooperation of people receiving the vaccine is needed in order to achieve herd immunity and return to normal life in the near future, he underlined.

On Thursday, HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah said the government expects to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus pandemic by the end of September, when 70 percent of the population will be vaccinated. Over the past few weeks, Kuwait has seen a sharp decrease in the number of new coronavirus cases, the number of patients and those in intensive care units.

On Friday, Kuwait reported 417 new coronavirus cases, taking total cases to 405,859, while three more deaths took total fatalities to 2,383. On Thursday, Kuwait reported 555 new COVID-19 cases and one death. The sharp drop in cases has prompted the government to end almost all restrictions by completely lifting a partial curfew, opening restaurants, cafes and malls to vaccinated people and ordering civil servants to return to offices starting today.

The government on Wednesday announced a plan to completely reopen schools to students of all categories. Foreign schools will open their doors on Sept 26, while public and private Arabic schools are scheduled to reopen on Oct 3. Schools were shut down in the last academic year as part of government efforts to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Authorities also reopened Kuwait International Airport to expats from the beginning of August after a six-month closure, but imposed strict conditions on arrivals. Expats who hold legal residence in the country and wish to return must have been vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna or Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson jab. The Cabinet late Wednesday said it was pleased by the improvement of the health situation in the country. - Agencies